Messages - panahi

Consent is a very specific thing. Consent to one leg does not imply consent to the other. The thing to focus on is whether the doctor knew or should have know that his operating on the wrong leg was harmful or offensive contact. Now, granted, he did not know he was operating on the wrong leg. This is why it may be better to try this case in negligence. Intent is all about the actors state of mind. There are two elements to a battery:

Battery is an intent tort. It revolves around the doctor's subjective intent.

We know that offensive and harmful contact resulted. The guy lost his good leg.

We may have some trouble determining whether the doctor had the requisite intent to have committed a battery.

We must analyze what he knew, (not: should have known, thats negligence), and what he had the purpose to do.

If he was negligent, and he was aware of his negligence at the time he amputated the leg. Say, for instance, that he had not looked at the patient's file, and he knew that this lack of knowledge could result in amputating the wrong leg, then he probably committed a battery, because he had knowledge that he could be causing harmful and offensive contact. The fact the he may have had doubts whether his negligence was resulting in harmful and offensive contact, is the weakness in the battery argument. It is important to note that the battery claim revolves around what he actually knew in his mind. Did the thought enter his mind that he was amputating the wrong leg, or was he thinking he might be amputating the wrong leg. The latter may still be battery, but it will be more tenuous.

So, really, in court, you could pursue a negligence claim and a battery claim resulting from the negligence claim. The important thing is to concentrate on what the doctor knew or meant to do.

Hi! You give a very good explanation of these things. The only question I have...or the only thing I question rather, is...since the only context I could think of where a doctor would have opportunity to amputate a "wrong" leg would be where he had permission to ampute at least "one" leg...thus, in the hypo where Dr. amputates wrong leg, it could only be construed as professional or medical malpractice....

Intent -purpose to cause harmful or offensive contact or -substantial certainty that the actions will result in harmful or offensive contact

Intent is a double pronged test. The second prong is a more lenient standard, and catches a lot of situations that the first prong would not catch.

Offensive contact means that a reasonable person would exclaim "outrage" at the idea of the type of contact. Amputating someones leg without their consent would cause a reasonable person to exclaim "outrage".

If a doctor amputated a leg, and could foresee that doing so without consent would cause someone offensive or harmful contact, and it was proved that he did not have consent, then there is the requisite intent to find battery.

You can and should combine this with the reasonable man standard. That is, this is all from the viewpoint of the mythic reasonable man: Barry Bonds.

That intent can then be transfered, in some cases: like if the doctor intended to amputate one man's leg and then mistakenly amputated another man's leg. This can be seen in negligence actions too, with the foreseeability part of the negligence test for the prudent man. Once intent has been established, it can be transferred from the intended victim to another nearby or connected victim.

I have a 2.47 UGPA in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas. I graduated in 2000. I made a 171 on the LSAT. My experience has been that I got into a lot of lower tier schools with nice scholarships, and was denied from all the higher ranked schools. Some of the schools (Berkeley) solicited me to reapply as a transfer after my first year. I am wait listed at Santa Clara and George Mason right now. If you look at the top-ten schools, they don't admit many (1-2) people with GPAs like ours. I recommend going to the LSAC (http://www.lsac.org)site and http://www.lawschoolnumbers.com to get a look at last years stats versus this years. I think the trend is tougher admissions, but RuskieGirl got into Berkeley, maybee they say to themselves "she could have not studied for the LSAT;..... and look at her GPA". I think that law schools want to see potential and ability. Your weakness right now looks like it is ability, how can you prove that you have ability? ask yourself.

That article sounds like good information. The fact that they rarely offer scholarships to transfers has a big impact on my plans. It sounds like not many people try to transfer, and that if you have a good reason and are capable you have a good shot.

I would like to know too. I am going to Ave Maria. I want to transfer after the second year to a Berkeley, Stanford, or some other top ten school. I wonder what can I expect?Will my 2nd tier first year hurt my chances?with a 4.0?